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So a step into food blogging. Other than a blow by blow account of a wonderful holiday by train between Paris and Italy how else could I blog a trip like this?

With first stop Paris, and an inability to get seated in our restaurant of choice we ended up at a meat-dominated grill. I say meat, but to a vegetarian this meat was almost walking off my partner’s plate. Or just swimming in blood. They did, however, cook a fabulous Omlette for me. The following day however, we managed to make a reservation at a restaurant recommended to me by a masseur – (!). Le Petit Prince de Paris, pretty hidden away in the Latin quarter with very rich food and flirtatious Garçons, I was very impressed. They made a vegetarian plate for me and the Pistachio Crème brûlée, lit at the table, was probably the most memorable part of any holiday meal…

One of the days in Rome a transport strike meant getting between our accommodation and the city was difficult. We were unsure where to go and ended up at what we think may be a chain restaurant. However unlike the feeling you get when going to Little Chef or Nandos and similar, you realise that Italian chain restaurants cook fresh pasta and use fresh ingredients. And there I tried Trofie for the first time. A short and relatively dense gnocchi type pasta (cooked with saffron and courgette/zucchini) I was so impressed I simply needed to buy a box before returning.

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She has a good point she finally gets to in her rant about new housing:

The British, like other timid mammals, are neophobic – that is, irrationally terrified of the new. Eco-housing will have to work differently without looking different.

…but her argument is terrible. She bemoans the destruction of romantic but inadequate Irish cottages – most of which disappeared with the potato famine and has no concept of housing’s role in creating, and reaction to economic forces, demographics and lifestyles… to suggest that unless you live in a hemp-built wind turbine clad in solar panels over a tube station you’re not really eco is just plain stupid..

Although I quite like her argument that “Houses grew uglier as the proportion of architects in the population and their share of the new-build budget grew”… St George’s Wharf is a good example of a building designed for maximum river views (and thus maximum profitability) – but will it not always been thus? In a world of commercial developers, and a country country obsessed with home ownership, design isn’t going to be based on what looks good from the outside. And look where functional designs have got us in the past. How does this all compare to her house?

Come on Germaine – you have some great points to make but sadly your argument let you down.

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I’ve unashamedly been keeping my distance from the news recently – holidays are great for that… and had no real desire to get back into it too much since my return. More dismay for the labour party isn’t something I want to engage in too much, but I appear, unfortunately to have missed some interesting thing I would normally have been blogging on.